


Asleep inside the cannon's mouth

by vtn



Category: Manic Street Preachers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-20
Updated: 2009-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 23:48:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"James Dean Bradfield is young and fit and he's now the singer in a band. He feels like he can get anything he wants from anyone, and he wants something from Nicky Wire. That something is Richey Edwards." Long story short: he gets more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asleep inside the cannon's mouth

**Author's Note:**

> Title filched from the absolutely gorgeous [You Will Be My Ain True Love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU7MEtAYSkA) by Sting and featuring Alison Krauss, from the _Cold Mountain_ OST, because it's somewhat thematically relevant.

James Dean Bradfield is young and fit and he's now the singer in a band. He feels like he can get anything he wants from anyone, and he wants something from Nicky Wire. That something is Richey Edwards.

Here's what James knows: Richey is Nicky's sweet little artist friend. He's soft spoken and looks innocent. He tags along by Nicky's side and drives Nicky in his car, Nicky's head out the window like a dog's as they drive down miles of motorway trying to escape the boredom none of them seemed to be able to shake. He paints things that everyone finds a bit disturbing, and he apparently has notebooks full of disillusioned, angry ramblings.

Also, he's gorgeous, and James is going to have him.

It has taken James a while to own up to this, and it's taking him even longer to actually do something about it. It's not like fancying boys is something new to James—he considers his bisexuality just an extension of his young-adult-male hyper-aroused state—but the problem with Richey is that there is a certain unspoken sense that he is Nicky's. Or attached to Nicky. That fucking Richey Edwards would be like giving Nicky the finger forever.

They're in Richey's car on the way to a gig, knees touching in the back seat, when James leans over and says, “What's the deal with Richey then?”

“What do you mean, what's the deal?” shouts Nicky over the radio. “I think he's just weird because he's Richey.”

“I like him,” says James, too softly for Richey to hear. Not that he's listening—he's having a bit of a rock 'n' roll moment along with “Anarchy in the U.K.” Nicky leans in closer so James can hear.

“Don't we all?”

“He looks,” James says, a bit nervously, “Like he'd be good at sucking cock.”

Nicky blanches.

“Excuse me?”

“Erm, yeah.”

“You'd better ask him,” says Nicky, turning to stare out the window, and the two of them don't speak another word for the rest of the ride.

\---

“So, Jimmy Dean,” says Richey, “Nicky told me what you said.”

James stares at the wall, and then he looks over at Richey, ready to get the scolding of the century.

“And I'll do whatever you like,” Richey continues, a sly smile turning up the corners of his lips. “I'll do just about anything once. And some things again, just for kicks.”

\---

James didn't expect this. Richey is almost too easy. Now his guilt shifts from guilt over corrupting Richey to guilt over taking something too good to be true.

“You're too good to be true,” he tells Richey while they're both shirtless in James's flat.

“I can't take my eyes offa you,” Richey sings back, out of tune. James buries his face in the crook of Richey's neck, sucks on Richey's warm skin. “You feel like heaven to touch, I just wanna hold you so much.”

“Oh, shut the ever loving fuck up,” says James. He gives Richey a good long kiss to make sure he pays attention.

But even when James is fucking him into the wall, Richey can't stop singing that stupid catchy song. “Da da, da da, da da da da da,” he intones the guitar solo. It's not that Richey can't fucking sing that annoys him so much, James realizes, it's that he's so nonchalant about it. Like he knew this was going to happen, and he was just waiting for the inevitable. Or is James just projecting his own feelings?

He shoves Richey onto the floor. Richey looks up at him with pretty dark eyes.

“Just suck my cock,” James says, and Richey fucking grins at him and sends him straight to hell.

\---

“Do you ever think about Nicky?”

James has just posed this question to Richey because the two of them are in James's bed, having just shared a bottle of rum and a cigarette, and James is too drunk to care.

“Do I ever,” says Richey, a slow smile breaking out over his face. “All the time. I'll be driving his car and I'll start thinking, about bein' with him.”

“I mean sexually,” James clarifies, feeing his face flush.

“Yeah,” says Richey. “And we've fucked lots of times, but sex gets boring when you do it too much. It's really liking people, really just spending time with people, that's the best thing.”

James had wanted this to be a confessional. He likes the way Richey just absorbs information and stays taciturn, doesn't tell secrets. He hoped he could rub off some of his guilt on Richey. But instead now he's hearing this. And he doesn't feel jealous, he doesn't feel hurt, he just feels kind of amazed. He puts his arm around Richey and at first Richey moves away, but then he curls in tight to James's body. And so soft that James has to strain to hear it, he says,

“And I really love him, don't I?”

\---

Since James doesn't know if this is something Richey will try once or something Richey would go back and try again, he doesn't bring it up until one night when the four of them are on their first tour. James has sort of been thinking of the fact that Richey and Nicky live together as incidental—and to all appearances it certainly seems true; they have separate rooms and nag each other about being on time with the rent. But then Richey climbs into bed with Nicky in their little hotel room (James and Sean are on floor duty and exchange 'race you to the empty bed' looks immediately).

“Don't give me this tonight,” Nicky mutters.

“I just want some warmth,” Richey says.

“What's the fucking matter with you?” Nicky persists.

“Nothing's wrong, just I'd rather be with you, you know, the--”

“Everyone's in here, Richey,” Nicky interrupts him. “I don't want to be going around answering questions from every damn person I know because of you.”

“I don't care,” Sean pipes up, and James gives him a light, friendly whack upside the head. “Suck my dick, James. I'm all for everyone being honest.”

“You know what,” James says, standing up, “I'll keep you warm, Richey, if it'll shut these two whinging bastards up.”

“Ah, fuck off,” says Nicky, and puts an arm around Richey. James and Sean fight over the empty bed for a short while and end up sleeping on opposite sides of it. And actually, in a funny way, because Sean's the only one there he hasn't got some kind of confused feelings about, that's not a bad arrangement.

\---

And then for some reason James can't sleep. Once he hears Sean's familiar steady breathing, he opens his eyes to see if Nicky's still up too and finds himself looking into Richey's big brown eyes as Nicky is fucking him, a hand clamped over his mouth so he can't cry out. His eyebrows lift and he extends one beckoning finger to James. With a lurch of his stomach, James climbs out of bed and strips naked so he can lie next to Richey, touch Richey's soft face with his fingers and slowly press his hand flat to Richey's cheek. Richey's hips are bucking against him and he pushes his other hand down to Richey's half-hard cock, folds his fingers around it and moves his hand until he feels his fingers grow slick from Richey's fluids.

And then Nicky...reaches over Richey's shoulder and shoves his tongue into James's mouth.

James feels Richey's body warm next to his and Nicky's wide hands pulling his face closer. It's bloody gorgeous. The thrusts of Nicky's hips drive Richey harder into James's hand, and then James is thinking, Nicky is damn good at this, he has a rhythm, he has an arsenal of filthy kisses and he has such a touch, like he wants to hold onto whatever it is he's touching forever.

"Bradfield..." Nicky breathes into his ear. "Fucking bastard."

"I'm the bastard?" James says. His erection is rubbing up against Richey's leg.

"Every time I saw you with your shirt off, every time you bent over, I was thinking about you, nearly killed me when you said you wanted Richey to suck your cock and now I--"

"Shut up."

And that turns out to be just the cure for James's sudden insomnia. Fucking Nicky Wire, fucking him deep and hard into the bed, their hands roaming all over each other's bodies, James's fingers in Nicky's mouth, Nicky's fingers pushing into James and finding that spot inside him that makes his body feel like a star exploding, them kissing when it's done, kissing pointedly and repeatedly....

The last image James sees before he falls asleep, though, is Richey. He's been there all along, the white sheet drawn around his body like a pall.

"Fuck you," he's saying, "Fuck the both of you. Fuck you forever. I hope you die, I hope the both of you fucking die."

\---

Richey disappears the next morning, as rain hits the windows of the hotel room. James and Sean change into their clothes while Nicky is sick in the toilet. He's left the car, so they walk widening concentric circles around the area, the fast food places and the convenience stores.

They find him an hour later, eating fried eggs in a dingy restaurant, dark circles around his eyes.

"What a coincidence," he says.

"Coinci—fuck! We've been looking for you for ages," Nicky says.

"Why do you waste your time? I'd come back, you know." He waves his fork around in the air. "You lot worry too much. I left the car, didn't I?" It's funny, James thinks. You have to guess at Richey's emotions by listening carefully to his words. He never reveals anything with his eyes.

"Don't do it again, all right?" says Sean warningly.

"Mary," says Richey to the waitress approaching their table, "Can you seat these three poor sods?"

"Sure thing," she says softly and nods before slipping into the back for silverware. They arrange themselves around the table.

"You're still worrying about me," Richey says to Nicky, flicking his eyes briefly over to James.

"Shouldn't a' done what I did," Nicky murmurs. At that moment James is unbelievably thankful to Sean for staying quiet. And he finds he's staying quiet too. This moment is between Nicky and Richey, and it is so heavy that James can't even keep his head up.

\---

By the seaside the wind is high and in their hair, blowing Richey's dark locks around his eyes. James thinks this is the purest way of seeing Richey. He's the beautiful kid James remembers, before he knew too much about Richey. There's the tiniest hint of a smile on his otherwise expressionless face.

"Are you all right?" James asks as he stumbles down the dunes. "As much as you ever are, anyway."

Richey has to raise his voice to speak over the wind.

"I'm not a fundamentally unhappy person," he says. "That's the mistake you're always making. It's just that everything seems to happen to me."

"I'd like to kiss you," says James. "We're alone, who could it hurt?"

"It's just another way of lying," Richey says softly.

"I'm not pretending anything," James says, sitting down next to Richey but not touching him. "I never said I was in love with you. It's just like..."

"That's the lie," he says. "Every intimate thing, it speaks of love but no one's ever loved me really."

"Love is..." James pauses. He can't tell Richey he loves him without staining his conscience forever, so he doesn't. "Not as good as just liking someone--"

"Then you've never been in love."

"Have you?" James snaps, then wishes he hadn't spoken. He looks out at the horizon, at the sky broken up by the wings of birds. He kicks the sand. "I'm sorry about what happened last night," he says finally. "I'm not—I don't—I don't love him, not like...not like you mean."

"Sex without love," says Richey. "Funny thing."

"Probably the punchline of something," James muses. "What happens at the beginning of a couple's life, and then again at the end, right?"

Richey is silent for a very long time. The ocean and the birds are the only sounds. There's something very lonely, James thinks, about the way the ocean just keeps going...

"I believe in a love that could last forever," Richey says. He picks up a rock and tosses it into the air over the water; it lands too far away for James to see.


End file.
